Islamic State claims beheading of US aid worker Peter Kassig in brutal video

THE Islamic State jihadist group is claiming to have executed US aid worker Peter Kassig in another brutal video as a warning to the United States.

AFP and AP and Network Writers

News Corp Australia NetworkNovember 17, 20147:05am

IS claims it has beheaded U.S. hostage Peter Kassig

In a video posted online, Islamic State militants claim they have beheaded American hostage Peter Kassig.

THE Islamic State jihadist group is claiming to have executed US aid worker Peter Kassig as a warning to the United States.

The extremist group has released a video showing a masked militant claiming to have beheaded Kassig, also known as Abdul-Rahman, and standing over a severed head.

In the nearly 16-minute video uploaded to social networks on Sunday, a black-clad militant with his face concealed stands before a severed head that he claims is that of the US aid worker.

US President Barack Obama has confirmed Kassig's death and condemned it as "an act of pure evil by a terrorist group".

“Today we offer our prayers and condolences to the parents and family of Abdul-Rahman Kassig, also known to us as Peter,” Mr. Obama said in a statement issued from Air Force One.

News_Image_File: Executioner ... the masked militant with known as Jihadi John, who featured in earlier videos of beheadings, is believed to have narrowly escaped death in a US air strike.

Kassig’s parents Ed and Paula Kassig said they are aware of the video and reports of the death of their “treasured son”, but are awaiting government authentication.

Earlier, in a joint press conference in Sydney with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said he was unable to confirm the authenticity of the new video but if true, described it as “utterly barbaric”.

“I don’t have any confirmation of the authenticity of any new video so I don’t want to comment on specifics - just to say that this is a death cult, it can’t be dignified with any other title.

“It has nothing to do with religion, it mocks god, it mocks Islam, it’s nothing but a death cult and one of the many reasons we are fiercely taking action against this death cult.

“It’s a threat everywhere, it’s declared war on the world.”

News_Image_File: Family mourns ... the family home of US hostage Peter Kassig in Indianapolis, Indiana. His family have asked that he be remembered for his aid work, rather than his brutal death. Picture: Getty

British Prime Minister David Cameron also condemned Kassig’s alleged death, saying he was “horrified by cold blooded murder” of the aid worker. “ISIL have again shown their depravity. My thoughts are with his family,” Mr Cameron said on Twitter.

The White House says the US intelligence community is working to determine the authenticity of the latest video.

US National Security Council spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan says that if the video is authentic, the White House would be “appalled by the brutal murder of an innocent American.”

She said the White House expresses its deepest condolences to Kassig’s family and friends.

The video emerged just minutes after US President Barack Obama departed Australia for the US after the G20 summit.

Kassig, 26, was captured last year while helping provide medical aid to Syrians.

His friends say he converted to Islam in captivity and changed his name to Abdul-Rahman.

The video also showed what appeared to be the mass beheading of several captured Syrian soldiers.

In the highly choreographed sequence, jihadists march the prisoners by a wooden box of long military knives, each taking one as they pass, before forcing their victims to kneel in a line and decapitating them.

The release of the October 3 video was heartbreaking for Kassig’s family and friends, who had been silent for a year after his capture. Kassig converted to Islam and took the name Abdul-Rahman while in captivity, and his family spent the ensuing weeks pleading for his life and stressing his humanitarian work and conversion to Islam in rallies and interviews in Indiana and Lebanon.

His mother also took to Twitter in hopes of contacting his captors directly.

His parents repeatedly said that they were unable to meet the demands made of them by Peter’s captors, but they did not specify what those demands were.

The video comes after reports the Briton who beheaded two British and two American hostages held by Islamic State terrorists, had been injured in a US-led air strike in Iraq.

The masked ‘executioner’ with a London accent known as Jihadi John is believed to have narrowly escaped death when he attended a summit of the group’s leaders in an Iraqi town close to the Syrian border last Saturday, according to the British Foreign Office.

News_Image_File: Believed dead ... Peter Kassig in front of a truck somewhere along the Syrian border as Special Emergency Response and Assistance (SERA) was delivering supplies to refugees. Picture: AFP PHOTO/Kassig Family

Kassig served in the Middle East after enlisting in the Army in 2004 and ultimately served in the 75th Ranger Regiment, a special operations unit, according to his military record. He served in Iraq from April until July 2007, and was medically discharged as a private first class that September.

Kassig’s desire to perform aid work in the region was kindled during a spring break trip to Beirut while he was studying political science at Butler University. He left school and returned to Lebanon in 2012, where he worked as a medical assistant and humanitarian worker and treated people from all sides of the conflict in neighbouring Syria.

Kassig founded a relief organisation, Special Emergency Response and Assistance, or SERA, around the belief that “there was a lot of room for improvement in terms of how humanitarian organisations interact with and cooperate with the populations that they serve.”

Kassig’s friends and family say he understood the risks involved of working in the region, but that he felt called to help.

Burhan Agha, a 26-year-old Syrian, used to work with Kassig in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli, delivering aid to Syrian refugees before Kassig moved his operations to southern Turkey. Speaking by phone from Switzerland, where he is seeking asylum, Agha described his friend’s killing as senseless.

“If I could apologise to each American, one by one, I would,” Mr Agha said while weeping. “Because Peter died in Syria, while he was helping the Syrian people. And those who killed him claimed to have done it in the name of Islam. I am a Muslim, and from Syria, and he is considered a part of the Syrian revolution.”

Joe Dages, a friend from Louisville, Kentucky, recently told the AP that it was clear how passionate Kassig was about his work when he last saw him in March 2013.

“He felt a need to stay up all day and all night and continue to help because people were dying all the time,” Mr Dages said. “He thought that maybe if I can just pour a little more of myself into this we can save a few more lives.”

The Syrian war has killed at least 200,000 people according to activists. It has also been an extremely deadly place for aid workers and reporters.

SERUMS suspended its efforts while Kassig’s family worked to secure his release.

Jihadi John has become one of the world’s most hunted terrorists after beheading British aid workers David Haines, 44, from Perth, Scotland and Alan Henning, 47, from Manchester; and American journalists James Foley, 40, and Steven Sotloff, 31.

Footage of the atrocities has been released online, and in the most recent gruesome execution video of Henning, put out last month, the murderer threatened to behead Kassig.